A little pickle flare.

Guess what? It's still snowing! Well, not this particular moment, but it's still been snowing on and off. I have no idea how we're not covered in 10 feet of snow, but we probably only have maybe 6 or 7 inches now? I must say, I will be pretty ticked if I go back to Ann Arbor this week and come home to find the snow melted here, but Brad says that's pretty unlikely. I've got my heart set on a white Christmas (which, I might add, is showing at the theater here in two weeks -- Brad said he'd go with me... We shall see!). Yesterday I took a quick break with the dogs to play in the snow. It's hilarious to watch them hop around like bunnies (and, eat sticks, in Heidi's case).

To warm us all up, I made a batch of cheese potatoes, following the recipe in the new issue of Food Network Magazine. It's a lightened-up version, using a mix of half low-fat milk and half full-fat milk. I used almost all skim milk and some heavy cream, so not sure how the healthy ratio works out. They were topped with delicious Gruyere cheese -- the most expensive kind of cheese in St. Joe, I think, as the hunk Brad brought home was $11. Eek! It was worth it, of course.

Finally, today called for a quick trip to the Sawyer Garden Center, as I needed a few xmas gift items. Of course, I could hardly resist the holiday items, all of which were 25% off. I did cave and bring home a real wreath, just so we could have some sort of greenery in the house for the holidays. It smells lovely and looks perfect on our inner door.

And last but not least, I almost forgot to give the Christmas pickle its due shout out. No tree for it to hang from this year, but it certainly wouldn't be Christmas without it.

Fake pickles are a-ok.